As a motivational technique, Ron Prince said he approaches his team with a trend early in the week and announces, "Hey, this could be really neat if we could do this." The third-year Kansas State coach shouldn't be short on any material this week. The Wildcats will face Colorado on Saturday night with the opportunity win three straight in the series for the first time in nine years. A victory would also give them their first back-to-back road wins since 2003.

Not bad.

Then again, Prince, whose team followed-up their worst home loss in 12 years with a rousing 44-30 effort at Texas A&M last weekend, doesn't believe the Wildcats, 4-2 overall and 1-1 in the Big 12, are necessarily as previously advertised.

"The reality is we're not nearly as bad as all of you think and we're probably not as good as people now think this week," Prince told reporters during his weekly news conference on Monday. "We've just got to continue to improve and get better. We're the same team."

Coming off its first road win in more than a year, K-State will face a struggling Colorado squad that is 3-3 and 0-2 in the Big 12 after suffering a 30-14 loss at Kansas, its third straight loss.

Out of 64 Bowl Championship Series teams, the Wildcats are one of 29 that boast at least a 4-2 mark. They are currently tied for second-place in the Big 12 North with Missouri, which dropped from No. 3 to No. 11 following a 28-23 loss to Oklahoma State in Columbia over the weekend. Texas defeated top-ranked Oklahoma and Texas Tech needed overtime to outlast Nebraska during the second week of what could become a crazy league season.

"Our mindset is exactly the same," quarterback Josh Freeman said. "We understand in this conference, a lot of teams are beating a lot of teams and you never know how it's going to shake out. We just have to continue taking care of our business and be in the hunt for wins."